


Own Accord

by Hisa_Ai



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Love, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-20
Updated: 2017-01-20
Packaged: 2018-09-18 20:59:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9402665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hisa_Ai/pseuds/Hisa_Ai
Summary: "I didn't bring you flowers, you prat. Since you're dreaming about me bringing you flowers, it's probably you who fancies me, you just don't want to admit it. But that's fine, Arthur, you don't have to say anything or lie about me bringing you flowers as a hint, I already know you fancy me, I won't tell anyone," Merlin shot back.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bellamysblakes (puddingandpie)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/puddingandpie/gifts).



* * *

 

 

*

 

If there was one thing that Arthur knew about Merlin—and actually, he knew quite a few other things about him as well—it was that his favorite sort of flowers were sweet peas. As far as flowers went, that was the extent of Arthur's knowledge concerning them, just that Merlin liked the one sort. He knew what looked pretty and what to give girls—whatever sort Merlin or Morgana or Gwen picked out for him to give to them—but what he knew most of all about them was that Merlin liked sweet peas. Arthur was sure he liked other sorts as well, of course, but he liked sweet peas most of all, and that was the only thing that truly mattered, and therefore the only thing he actually _needed_ to know.

  
"Honestly, Arthur," Merlin shook his head one day, grinning down at the book of flowers that he just so _happened_ to be reading just then—and honestly, Arthur was sure he wasn't even properly reading it, he just had it there to be a brat, to tease Arthur with it—"what sort of king doesn't know about the different kinds of flowers? This is the sort of thing you'll need to know one of these days—mark my words. You should get reading," he insisted, sliding the book across the table to him.

  
Arthur rolled his eyes and shut the book when it came to rest in front of him, an act of expected defiance that left a glimmer in Merlin's eyes. And God, Arthur just couldn't tell if that more amused or aggravated him—and heaven forbid it did _both_. He let his fingers dance along the spine as Merlin stood from where he'd been sitting, and gave it a lingering glance before he gave his attention to Merlin again instead.

  
The next morning, he awoke all too early to sweet peas on the pillow next to him, and, through a hazy sort of fog that left a small little smile on his face as he drifted back to sleep, he had to wonder since when Merlin had been able to come and go into his room without waking him up.

  
When he woke up again some hours later to his manservant all but beating him awake with one of his pillows, he cracked an eye open to check on the state of his flowers and nothing else; with Merlin behaving in that way, there was always the risk of them being crushed, and Arthur simply couldn't have _that_. A frown skated across his face, however, as he reached up to grab the pillow Merlin had in his grasp, a crease between his eyes as he propped himself up and all but demanded, "Where are my flowers?"

  
"Your flowers?" Merlin repeated with a frown of his own, hands on his hips. And Arthur wasn't sure for a second whether he was going to grab for the pillow again or not, the look on his face; just to be on the safe side, and to better get to the bottom of things, he threw the pillow to the floor, sure that Merlin wasn't going to want to walk all the way around his bed just to retrieve the pillow.

  
"I didn't bring you flowers—I'm not bringing you flowers when I come to wake you up; your incentive for getting out of bed is not being late for important meetings or training. If you want flowers, talk to someone who _fancies_ you," Merlin insisted.

  
Arthur rolled his eyes and fell back against his pillow. _Right_ , he hadn't brought Arthur flowers, because Arthur _often_ dreamt about flowers being left on his pillow, and because there was _anyone_ _else_ who would be in Arthur's chambers before he awoke for any reason in the world, let alone for _that one_.

  
"We _both_ know you brought me flowers, Merlin," he finally said. "And we _both_ know you left them on my pillow and that they were sweet peas, so I suppose I _am_ talking to someone who fancies me, you just don't want to admit it. That's fine, I already saw the flowers this morning, I already know, you didn't have to come back and hide them because you were afraid of me finding out."

  
When he looked up at Merlin— _really_ looked at him—his servant was blushing a bright red, but still shaking his head all the while.

  
"I _didn't_ bring you flowers, you prat. Since _you're_ dreaming about _me_ bringing you flowers, it's probably **you** who fancies **me** , you just don't want to admit it. But that's fine, Arthur, you don't have to say anything or lie about me bringing you flowers as a hint, I already know you fancy me, I won't tell anyone," Merlin shot back.

  
Arthur rolled his eyes, he _really_ should have expected that, he knew, it was his own fault for not seeing it coming, he could admit that to himself and no one else.

  
So to Merlin, he simply said, "Just bring me my breakfast. And there'd _better_ be flowers with it."

  
Merlin laughed in response, turned tail and left Arthur to himself long enough for the pounding in his chest to subside, and his face to return to a normal enough shade.

  
When Merlin returned some time later, he had Arthur's breakfast balanced on a tray, a purple flower with a name that Arthur couldn't recall off the top of his head sitting in a small vase in the center of it.

  
*

  
It was a peculiar thing, those flowers, because most mornings after that first one, when Arthur awoke before Merlin could come in to wake him—though those mornings were rare and far between, he could admit—there would be some sort of flower or another laying on his pillow next to him, but by the time Merlin came back to awaken him properly for the day, they would be gone.

  
Why did Merlin go out, pick fresh flowers to lay down next to Arthur in bed while he slept, only to remove them again before he woke Arthur up? What was the _point_? Why go through so much trouble if he was only going to take them away again before Arthur could wake up, put them in a proper vase, and set them on his desk? Because _of course_ that's what he would have done if Merlin only gave him the chance to.

  
Merlin was nothing short of a puzzle sometimes, honestly.

  
*

  
The flowers on his pillow in the mornings were one thing, but this, Arthur thought to himself with his lips pressed into a flat line, this was… **_Well_**. This was _**well**_ —that was all.

  
And what exactly was _**well** _ were the bright red flowers peeking out of the creaks and cracks of his armor. That was as _**well** _ as it got, truly. _Especially_ considering he had a tourney to fight in and, as much as he might have appreciated the flowers, he wasn't sure they were going to help him win, short of his opponent laughing himself off the field at the sight of him, of course.

  
God, _of course_.

  
What had Merlin been thinking with this little stunt? Surely he _knew_ this was going to do nothing but waste both of their time because there was no way he was going out to fight like this—absolutely none at all, and Arthur knew if Merlin was left to his own devices it would take him all morning and afternoon to remove the flowers himself, so of course Arthur was going to have to help him remove them before he could put the armor on, and then they would actually have to get the armor put on him and be sure he was back in the correct head-space for the coming fight and not distracted with any more thoughts of _honestly Merlin_ , and, _what is wrong with him sometimes._

  
At this rate, he was sure he was going to lose the tourney, a thought that could have left him with enough melancholy in his veins to weigh him down if he dwelled on it for much longer. Just as he was getting ready to do as much, however, his chamber door swung open, and he spun around just in time to watch Merlin kick the door shut behind himself, Arthur's sword in his grasp and a carefree enough sort of look on his face. _He_ was certainly unbothered by the state he'd left Arthur's armor in.

  
"And _what_ —" Arthur began, tone dripping with a displeasure he could tell Merlin felt from the way a frown slowly began creeping itself across his face. "—do you have to say about what it is you've done to my armor this morning?" he finished, gesturing behind himself without looking to better gauge Merlin's reaction to _his_ reaction.

  
Always one to surprise and infuriate Arthur, Merlin peeked around him at the armor, then looked back to Arthur, a slow, concerned, amused look on his face as he did so.

  
"You're welcome?"

  
"I'm _welcome_?" Arthur repeated, incredulous.

  
"Yes. You're welcome. This is the part where you say thank you now," Merlin prodded, moving past him to place the sword down near the armor that he didn't seem to think there was anything wrong with. If he honestly thought Arthur was going to just let it go as though nothing was out of the ordinary here, he had _quite_ another thing coming.

  
With that thought in mind, Arthur spun around and pointed to the armor accusingly, mouth open and ready to start telling Merlin just what it was that he _wasn't_ welcome for _actually_ , except—

  
—instead of finding the pops of red on his armor, he found, **_well_**.

  
Nothing at all.

  
The flowers were gone now, just like that.

  
If Arthur hadn't seen them there himself not even a full minute previous, he would have wondered whether or not they had actually been there in the first place, but—no, they _had_ been there, he'd _seen_ them, they'd just… they'd _just_ been there. Surely Merlin wasn't that quick that he'd pulled them all from his armor in the few seconds it took Arthur to turn around to face him? No, of course not, Merlin of all people wasn't _that_ quick. And even if he was, there had been far too many flowers for him to manage to pull all of them out and dispose of them—what would he even have done with all those flowers? There was nowhere nearby to hide them, so unless he'd eaten them…

  
"Ar-thur?" Merlin said, voice a gentle, teasing sing-song as he pushed a finger against the other's shoulder to better grab his attention. "Everything alright? Not nervous about the fight, are you?"

  
Arthur's eyes flicked up from the armor to Merlin then, and in that second he decided that the flowers could stay with him for the moment—there was clearly something going on here; either he _was_ nervous about the fight and his mind was playing tricks on him to distract from it, or…

  
Something else. Something else that he hadn't quite pieced together yet.

  
Yet.

  
"Nervous?" he asked then, trying to make his voice sound as normal as he possibly could just then. "Now why would I be nervous? Help me into my armor already so we can get out there and you can see just how nervous I'm _not_ —you really did take too long getting here, you know."

  
*

  
The flowers weren't limited to Arthur's pillow and his armor soon enough—no, eventually they started showing up in other places too—among his speeches and on his throne and in his tunics and all about his room—but they always disappeared before he could really and truly figure out when Merlin had put them there and how. And he could never figure out how Merlin managed to get rid of them just as quickly as he'd put them there—never mind the why, the why didn't matter as much as the _how_ did most of the time, truth be told.

  
But then one day, when he found himself looking at a rose—that one he knew the name of; most of the flowers that turned up he hadn't the vaguest notion what they were called, but this one at least he knew the name of, and he was quite proud of that fact—that was wrapped around the corner of his mirror, he heard Merlin enter his chambers with the chainmail he had meant to have repaired that afternoon, and he felt a sort of thrill in him over the fact that Merlin wouldn't be able to get rid of _this_ rose before Arthur could confront him about it. No, _this time_ Arthur would get his answers, he had the proof he needed to get those answers literally right in front of him this time.

  
Just as he thought as much, and just as Merlin dropped the chainmail to his table, Arthur's eyes drifted to the rose, and he moved a hand to grab for it so he could take it over to Merlin and as good as shove it in his face. But before his fingers could make contact with the silky smooth petals, the flower slowly started to vanish right in front of his very eyes, the air where it had been just a moment previous shimmering with something unknown and familiar that sent a prickling of dread shooting through him in realization. The emptiness that the rose left was filled suddenly by answers Arthur had so desperately sought out beforehand, and that he wasn't quite sure he actually wanted anymore.

  
*

  
Once Arthur knew what he didn't think he wanted to know anymore, the flowers lost their importance for a little while. Every time he found a flower or five or however many were left wherever they were left whenever they were left there, he bit his bottom lip in contemplation and worry instead of smiling or letting his heart skip a beat at the implications of it—these _new_ implications were much more… **something**. They were **something** and the old implications were something _else_ and it left Arthur a mess of confusion and bewilderment for quite a while.

  
He couldn't tell whether or not Merlin could tell there was something going on with him, but if he could, he wasn't saying anything about it. And neither was Arthur—Arthur didn't even know where he might begin even if he _had_ wanted to bring it up. Truly, where _could_ he begin? Where was the right place to begin with all of this? With the flowers? He already knew that Merlin didn't want to admit to leaving them around, so Arthur was well aware that no such conversation would lead anywhere.

  
They were at an unspoken impasse, it seemed, the most frustrating sort anyone could ever possibly be at.

  
*

  
He'd just finished watching a sweet pea fade from view one morning when Merlin came into his chambers without warning, earlier than he usually was; typically, Arthur had time to watch the flowers vanish and then turn back over and get some more sleep before Merlin came barging in to remind him that he had Important Things that he needed to attend to, and they would best be attended to out of bed. He could almost be worried just then, if he wasn't so tired instead, that something had happened.

  
"Arthur! We _need_ to talk," Merlin insisted, voice sounding just urgent enough to pull Arthur more awake than he wanted to be.

  
"It's too early to need to talk—can't it wait until after breakfast?" he asked, his pout very much so implied as he sat up slightly on his bed anyway, expecting for Merlin to drag him out of it if he didn't, if the unimpressed look on his face was anything in the world to go by.

  
"If I don't tell you now I'll lose my nerve, so no, it _can't_ wait—do you want to get out of bed? No, you'd better be sitting down for this—you could at least comb your hair beforehand though—or I should probably do it for you, you never can do it right, can you? Not that it's hard, combing hair, you're just too spoiled for your own good—actually, nevermind, your hair looks fine, you're not leaving your chambers and I don't feel like being your servant just yet, so just…" he waved his hand dismissively in Arthur's direction, pacing and bouncing about in front of Arthur in the most peculiar sort of manner. "… stay where you are, I suppose. You can go back to bed after I've said what I need to say—if you can sleep after, I mean, you might not be able to—sorry in advance—not really, of course, but—"

  
" _Mer_ lin!" Arthur interrupted, his sharp tone cutting through Merlin's overflowing and thickening energy; he was awake enough now that his curiosity was beginning to get the better of him, and it was far too early in the morning for his curiosity to be left unsated as such.

  
"Right, sorry," Merlin shook his head and came to stand still in front of Arthur's bed, fingers still twisting around themselves with the nervous energy Arthur had been hoping to squash. Right, well, maybe it _was_ something important after all. "So. The thing of it is—erm," he shook his head once again, his palpable nervousness suddenly heavier than it had been, much more serious when pressed up against the jitteriness he'd had about him only a moment ago.

  
"The thing of it is," he began again, sterner, more determined this time. "is that I… have something to tell you, something I should have told you a long, long time ago, something that I've been meaning to tell you, something I've been _wanting_ to tell you, but something that just… I just haven't been able to tell you, because I didn't know how you would react and I didn't want to make things… _bad_ between us. I just didn't want you to look at me any differently than you look at me now, I…" he trailed off again with a scratch of his head.

  
Despite how much he both had and hadn't just said, Arthur knew how difficult those words had all just been for Merlin, how much more difficult his next words were bound to be—if this was going where he suspected it was going, anyway. And of course it was going to go there— _of course_ it was, there was no other way or place this conversation could possibly go.

  
Merlin _would_ want to have this sort of talk bright and early in the morning, wouldn't he? **_G o d._**

  
"The thing of it is, Merlin," Arthur said, cutting off Merlin's babbling that wasn't going any place in particular just yet. "is that I already know."

  
Merlin shut his mouth tightly upon Arthur daring to utter such words, glaring thoughtfully at the royal. If Merlin only kept his mouth shut like that, Arthur couldn't help but think, then they could finish the conversation later when Arthur was more awake and better equipped to _actually_ handle it.

  
"What do you mean..." Merlin began slowly, giving Arthur no such tiny comfort. "… that you _already_ _know_?"

  
"I mean _exactly_ what I just said," he rolled his eyes. "I **_already know_** , so… you don't have to—we don't have to have this conversation right now—I **_already know_** , it's fine, let's just… go back to sleep for now, yeah?" Arthur suggested, patting his bed invitingly, hoping it was an enticing enough offer to keep Merlin from wanting Arthur to elaborate any.

  
And for a moment, Merlin seemed to be considering it—Arthur could see it in his eyes, and he allowed himself to hope against hope just long enough that it was disappointing when Merlin shook his head and said, "No, we _do_ need to talk about it—more specifically, we need to talk about what it is _you're_ talking about, because there's no way you're talking about what _I_ want to talk about right now."

  
Honestly, the fact that Merlin could still be so stubborn so early in the morning was a sort of talent Arthur wished he didn't have just then.

  
"I know about your magic," Arthur sighed, watching Merlin's face go from surprised to panicked to suspicious in too short of a time for Arthur to gather any more sort of wits about him.

  
" _What?!_ "

  
"You heard me," Arthur replied, sinking back down on his bed ever so slightly. "I don't think there's really—"

  
" _How_ do you know?" Merlin interrupted, finally moving to sit down next to Arthur for a moment, his eyebrows drawn together as he looked to Arthur imploringly.

  
For a moment, Arthur simply looked at the other, considering him. What did he _mean_ how did Arthur know? He wasn't stupid, obviously Merlin had to know he was going to put it together sooner or later. _Honestly_.

  
"The flowers," he said simply then, thinking that was explanation enough, and that realization would flash across Merlin's face as everything clicked into place, and that Arthur could go back to sleep for a couple more hours and they could deal with everything all proper like once he awoke again.

  
He never did get what he wanted.

  
Because instead of realization on Merlin's face, he found even more confusion there, and he started to suspect that he was through with sleep for the day.

  
"The flowers," Merlin repeated slowly, blinking at him.

  
"Right. The flowers."

  
Merlin leaned forward and gave him a look as though to prod him on for more information, as though that _really_ wasn't explanation enough.

  
"The flowers… that you dreamt I left on your pillow that one morning how long ago? God, and here I thought I'd been careless and that you'd _actually_ seen something. You can't just… accuse people of magic because of a dream you had once, you're not Uther," he said, as though chastising Arthur—here he was, trying to tell Arthur that he had magic, that he'd kept it from him for as long as they'd known each other, and _he_ had the audacity to scold _Arthur_.

  
"I wasn't accusing you of anything!" Arthur exclaimed. "You were trying to tell me about it, remember? And it wasn't a dream and it wasn't just the one time—you and I _both_ know that you've been leaving flowers damn near everywhere—on my bed, my armor, my clothes, my mirror, my sword, my boots, my belt—you leave them _everywhere_ , and then—and _then_ you use your magic to make them… disappear before you arrive so you don't have to face me and the flowers—and I really don't get it, actually, why bother showing up early all the time to leave me flowers if you were just going to make them disappear so soon after leaving them?"

  
"What are you **_talking_ ** about?"

  
"You know _exactly_ what I'm talking about!" Arthur pointed a finger at Merlin accusingly, he wasn't getting out of this, wasn't going to get away with denying it when Arthur had seen the flowers time and time again, had watched them slowly dissipate from existence right before his very eyes.

  
There was absolutely no way he was going to get away with that so early in the morning.

  
"Arthur, I really have no idea. Why would I show up early? When have you _ever_ known me to show up early and not wake you up?"

  
Arthur opened then closed his mouth as he considered Merlin's words, that was… _fair_ , when he put it like that—when _did_ Arthur ever know Merlin to show up early and not wake him up while he was at it? Other than when he came to leave flowers in Arthur's chambers, that was. Though _apparently_ that wasn't a thing that had actually happened, which meant nothing made any sort of sense anymore.

  
"So if you're not coming in to leave me flowers, then who—"

  
" _Well_ ," Merlin ducked his head then, rubbing the back of his neck, as though he knew something, as though he were hiding something.

  
With narrowed eyes, Arthur was just about to ask Merlin what it was, because they really did need to get to the actual and very bottom of things.

  
But Merlin beat him to it, chin coming up and forward with confidence Arthur wasn't sure Merlin felt as he said, "The flowers still might've been me. Erm… if you're so sure you've actually been seeing flowers everywhere, and you've seen them disappear right before your eyes… well, if my magic can make them _vanish_ …" he trailed off, his sheepish self once again as he gave Arthur a moment to fill in the blank.

  
The same realization that Arthur had expected to flit across Merlin's face not too long ago found a home on his own instead, because oh. _Oh_. That… _well_ , that made a world of sense, didn't it? It made so much more sense than Arthur's idea had—why _would_ Merlin sneak about early to leave flowers for Arthur that he didn't want him to see?

  
"Wait…" Arthur began slowly then, something else occurring to him. "what do you mean by _still might've?_ You don't _know_ what your magic does?"

  
"I do. Except when I don't. Look, it's… complicated, okay?" Merlin sighed, shaking his head.

  
"Why would your magic do this though? Leave me flowers, get rid of them—why would it—?"

  
"Because… it's like you said before, I fancy you. And it's like I said just now, it's complicated. You don't _really_ want me to get into all the boring details right now, do you? Wouldn't you rather… go back to sleep?" he suggested, eyes ghosting along the length of Arthur's bed in a way that Arthur very much so ignored in light of what Merlin had just said. He'd already known that, of course— _of course_ he had, he'd said as much that first morning he'd woken up to those sweet peas on his pillow. Still, it was much different to have Merlin admit to it himself.

  
With a warmth spreading through him that made him grin, Arthur said, "I'd rather you say that thing again, actually. The bit about fancying me."

  
Merlin snorted, moved closer to Arthur on his bed until their faces were just next to each other.

  
"I'm sure you would," he said, brushing his nose against Arthur's. "But I think I would rather hear you say it first."

  
"What? That you fancy me?" Arthur teased in reply, voice a low sort of murmur. "You already know that, I would hope. I can tell you something else you probably already know, though—I fancy you too. But you _did_ already know that, I hope, otherwise you probably wouldn't be about to kiss me, would you?" he asked rhetorically, watching the corners of Merlin's mouth twitch up just before he closed the rest of the distance between them for a blissfully sweet moment that Arthur had been anticipating for what could have been a lifetime now.

  
"Prat," Merlin mumbled when he pulled back, breathless, though Arthur wasn't sure why; that had been a damn good kiss, hardly worthy of a _prat_ at all.

  
"Says the one who's been keeping a secret from me for how long now? We _do_ need to talk about that eventually, you know. _And_ you need to tell me the names of all those flowers your magic's been leaving me," he insisted in a playfully stern sort of voice.

  
"I didn't _see_ the flowers! I don't know what sort they were!" Merlin lamented in return.

  
"I still have that book of flowers, I'll point them out later and you can tell me what they are."

  
"Later?" Merlin repeated with a raised eyebrow.

  
"Well, I have other plans for _now_ , so— ** _later_** ," he repeated, moving to kiss Merlin again to put his very well thought out plans into action.

  
*  
  


* * *

 


End file.
